In Oxnard, Oakland Is of Little Concern

From Oakland, that column of smoke grows ever thicker. If there is a fire under it, you’re looking at the last days of the Los Angeles Raiders.

Raider sources continue to speculate about an imminent deal with Oakland. This dovetails with the Oakland Tribune’s report that the “framework” of a proposal to discuss a return of the team to its ancestral home has been agreed to.

Meanwhile, the players try to prepare for the 1989 season. Are their little heads spinning?

Nah. They’re tough. They’re professional athletes. They’re used to the mushroom treatment: being kept in the dark and fertilized.

Do they worry about a move to Oakland?

To a man, they chorus that they’ve got a little problem closer to home. Try their individual survival.

Or as Coach Mike Shanahan, pleading complete ignorance of developments, puts it:

“The important thing, you’ve got to make sure you play well, so you’ll have the opportunity of coming back and playing wherever. The bad news is if there’s a move, but you don’t have a chance to go with it.”

Aside from that, among the Raiders it’s, “What, me worry?”

This is the team that won the Super Bowl in early 1981 as an Oakland franchise, with the air thick with rumors of an impending move to Los Angeles.

This is the team that lived and practiced in Oakland in 1982 in its first season as a Los Angeles franchise. It flew south for home games each week and stayed in a hotel the night before, in effect playing all its games on the road . . . and went 8-1 that strike-interrupted season. Only an upset at the hands of the New York Jets kept the Raiders from the American Conference final.

“Being nomadic is part of the issue,” says Todd Christensen, a South Bay homeowner. He, Howie Long and Matt Millen are the last of the old Oakland Raiders.

“You’ve got most of the people here--I’d say more than half--who live somewhere else in the off-season anyway,” Christensen says. “It’s not as consequential as it might seem. People are going to play where the work is. And if that’s Oakland; Prudhoe Bay, Alaska; Bangor, Me.; it doesn’t matter.”

Nor do Raider players find the swirl of reports unsettling. People are always buzzing about something. Players are used to trying to ignore it.

“When we were in Oakland, there was talk about a move the year before,” Christensen says. “As a matter of fact, it really hurt the ticket sales in 1980. For the first time in however-many years it was, they didn’t have sellouts. (Five of the Oakland Raiders’ first six home games in 1980 failed to draw 50,000 people, making them the worst five crowds in 11 seasons). Of course, as we started getting closer to the playoffs and the Super Bowl, they started to sell out.

“Yeah, it was hot then, but it didn’t seem to affect the play on the field. Obviously, because we became the only wild-card team to win the Super Bowl.”

So they had better things to talk about than the impending move south.

Any subject would have been better, actually.

“You understand your limitations,” Christensen says. “What can you do to control it? You’re talking to the proletariat about bourgeois decisions.”

How Los Angeles fans would react to a lame-duck local entry is yet to be learned. The fact that the amazing, disappearing Raiders will be coming off three non-playoff seasons in a notoriously front-running area won’t help.

In Oakland, the departing Raiders threw in a league championship on the way out of town, which made for a kind of split reaction.

“The fans were hostile to Al (Davis) but not toward the players,” Millen says. “The fans boycotted a Monday night game in 1981, the start of it.”

Of course, after the game was under way, the football-mad faithful streamed in. The game sold out.

“They were great fans,” Millen says. “Pittsburgh was there. (Terry) Bradshaw got hurt and they were throwing beer on him as he was walking out of the stadium. It was the same old Oakland fans, you know?”

On this season’s roster, 42 Raiders will know nothing of Oakland, except what they’ve been told. They may be like Don Mosebar, born in Yakima, Wash., raised in Visalia, Calif., educated at USC; or Steve Beuerlein, the Orange County kid who matriculated to Notre Dame but is back to stay.

“All I know about this is what I read in the papers,” Mosebar says, grinning. “I ought to talk to you about it.

“We don’t really talk about it. I’m just looking to get through this year healthy. It’s hard for me to look from year to year because I’ve had some injury problems.

“Seriously, I’m just looking to make it through the year healthy and then if I’m still playing with ‘em, that’d be great. The fans are real good up there. The fans here have been great, but it seems like that’s where the Raiders were born, you know.”

“Does it come up? No. We don’t know what’s going on. We’re employees of a corporation. Usually, we’re not the first to know. A guy off the street knows as much as me.”

Says Beuerlein: “I’m not following it with too much of a keen eye. I bought my house for an investment. I’m a Southern California boy, anyway, so if we go up there, I’ll just stay up there during the season but I’ll live down here.

“You don’t really hear guys talking about it. We’ve got a lot of other things on our mind right now. In this business, if you don’t perform this year, then you’re not going to be around next year to worry about being up in Oakland or wherever we might be.”

Raider Notes

Raider officials went on alert Sunday when the San Diego Chargers waived tackle John Clay. The Raiders originally took Clay with the 15th pick in the ’86 draft and then traded him for Jim Lachey a year ago. However, by Monday, the Raider decision was: no interest. Said Mike Shanahan: “We don’t have any plans to bring him in.” Clay has a herniated disk in his back and was unlikely to play this season. The Raiders decided it wouldn’t be worth paying his $290,000 salary to see if he could make it back after that. . . . Linebacker Otis Wilson is now practicing in pads. Shanahan says his surgically-repaired knee is “much better.” If it holds up, expect Wilson to push Linden King out of the strong-side linebacker spot.

The Raiders cut No. 9 draft pick Gary Gooden. . . . With the new 80-man limit in camp, and with only 62 healthy bodies, the Raiders have dropped their plans to work in pads twice a day. They are working without pads in the morning. . . . Willie Gault strained his left hamstring and will miss a couple of days. . . . Shanahan on Mike Dyal, the unknown who is challenging for the starting tight end spot: “He’s coming along great.”

RELATED STORY: Part II, Page 1.